


Somewhere in England 1928, A Fanfiction of Same

by LauraDoloresIssum



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft
Genre: 1920s, F/M, Lovecraftian, M/M, Multi, Survival Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 14:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9328973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LauraDoloresIssum/pseuds/LauraDoloresIssum
Summary: Contains: A tentacled horror, a mansion full of dead cultists, disappointing gin, and lots of queerness.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Somewhere in England 1928](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/256472) by DrinkCiderMakeGames (http://armorgames.com/user/DrinkCiderMakeGames). 



> A bit different, this is a fanfic of an Armor Games.com flash game that inspired an afternoon of frenzied scribbling, as happens when the writing stars align. I would recommend Somewhere in England, it's a nice short point-and-click game with some decent shadowy gibbering horrors and likable protagonists. As with the original, contains alcohol/drugs, queerness, and Lovecraftian abominations; my version owes a creative nod or two to Stephen King's novella "The Mist".

There was nothing else to do but sit and wait to die, so I went and poured myself a drink. Tragically, the cabinet had nothing but a half-empty bottle of gin, but I took a swig anyway and grimaced. I felt the liquor go down my parched throat like fire and rise up in a warm, unpleasant bubble in my stomach. My hands were shaking so badly I splashed the front of my shirt, not that it was ever getting clean anyway after all the blood on it.

“What I wouldn’t give for a brandy right now,” I said aloud, keeping my voice as low as I could. “You’d think these twits would at least stock good liquor.”

Slumped against the wall, his face pale and his breathing ragged, Thomas chuckled feebly. It was good to see a smile on his face, even – no, _especially_ – under the circumstances.

“I don’t suppose there’s a secret escape route back there?”

I patted around the inside of the cabinet (what could it hurt, really?). “Sorry, no luck.”

“Blast.”

I went over and squatted down beside him. He didn’t look good. The suckers had mostly just torn up his clothes, but where his shirt had come untucked in the struggle one of the big ones had caught flesh, leaving a perfectly circular wound the size of a dinner plate.

I stroked his hair. “How are you holding up, Tommy?”

He winced. “Keeping the pressure on. It’s not fun. I think that bastard broke a rib or two. Still, I’ve had worse after nights on the town with you.”

The chuckle was jerked out of my throat as though by an invisible hook. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or the beginnings of a court case.”

“Honestly, neither am I.” The spreading stain on Thomas’s shirt was starting to slow down. His hand looked like it was covered in thin red paint, and I resisted the urge to laugh madly. “Do you know where Harriet is?”

I shook my head. “I saw her cut herself loose and make a run for the other door. I hope she got out.”

“Me too.”

The screaming faded, and we both stiffened and looked up toward the door, our ears pricked for the slightest sound of movement. But a moment later it resumed. Thomas shuddered.

“What is it _doing_ back there?”

“There were a lot of people in that room.” I tried to ransack my brain. How many of our assailants had there been? Thirty? Fifty? No, had to be less. The dining room hadn’t been that big. “Twenty-five, maybe.”

“They did look very surprised when it started eating them,” Thomas mused. “Then again, I was pretty surprised myself. How long ‘till it finds us, do you think?”

I stared past the broken door, where a single black, oily tentacle the thickness of a rake handle was slithering along the floor. Its tip quested back and forth like a hunting dog. The only kindness was that Thomas couldn’t turn his head that way to look.

“Not long, I think.”

“No point trying to make a break for it, I suppose?”

I eyed him. “Can you even walk?”

“I don’t know. I’m too cowardly to try.”

“Well, here.” I offered him my shoulder. Why not? It would do us both good to concentrate on something. “Hoist yourself up on this.”

He tried. I saw his face go long with pain, and he started to slide down. I caught him and with a great effort managed to get his arm clasped around my neck. He held on obediently, and stood. His leg on his injured side tapped strengthlessly against the floor.

I gripped his elbow. “That’s it. You’re doing marvelously.”

His caramel-colored eyes stared into mine, very wide. I took a long moment to admire the little flecks of gold around the rims. I could almost see his hair going white inches from my face. After what felt like half an eternity, he breathed, “Alright. I’m good.”

“Good,” I whispered, even though my breath was hitching painfully in my chest from his weight. “Marvelous. Now, let’s see if we can walk—”

I moved one foot, then the other, and the pressure increased until I thought my collarbone would snap as Tommy hopped along beside me. My left hand went up and took firm hold of his wrist. “Good job, my friend, just hold on,” I said, somehow managing to keep the tears out of my voice. “Just hold on.”

Agonizingly slowly, we inched our way along. Every breath was searing in my chest now, and I felt a faint resentment. I had done plenty of illegal things in my day, granted, but nothing immoral, before God. Why should my last moments have to be so damned uncomfortable?

We were only a few feet away from the door by now. I saw the tentacle rise up in the air, its tip quivering. I stared at the gray underside, lined with increasingly fine suckers with a faint colorful sheen on the inside. Could it actually smell us? I glanced over at Thomas, but his eyes were glazed and he was staring at a spot just above the doorframe. I prayed that would be a good thing, that it would make it easier for him.

“Look,” I breathed as we took a few more Herculean steps closer to death, “if we don’t make it, I just want you to know…”

His eyes didn’t focus, but his voice came in my ear, barely existent but steady. “Hold right there, Will, we’ll both be in big trouble if you finish that sentence. You don’t want to bring the police down on us, do you?”

I laughed hoarsely – more of a wheezing cough, really – and thought that I would never be more grateful in my life than to hear the police breaking down the front door with a battering ram right now. Even if my father were leading them in, even if they just took Tommy and Harriet away and left me to die, I would never be more grateful for anything as long as I lived.

It seemed the thing _heard_ me, for it surged immediately off the floor and slithered toward us like a floating snake, the tip upturned like it was raising a hand hello. Tommy started back, nearly falling off my shoulder again, and made a whimpering sound. I knew I certainly had no desire to have that thing near me, seeing the wounds it had made on Thomas and on the anonymous berobed figures we had so foolishly followed here.

Acting purely out of instinct, my free hand swung the gin bottle (I hadn’t even realized I was still holding it), the contents splashing everywhere, and slammed the appendage forcefully into the jagged edge of the door. I felt its flesh _give_ unpleasantly, like a sock filled with mold, and it writhed about in obvious pain, speared on a large splinter sticking out the side. Rooms away, I heard whatever was attached to the other end scream. I drew my hand back, coolly noticing the imprint the glass made on its side, and gave it a few more solid whacks for good measure.

“Now’s our chance!” I whispered. “Go, go, go!”

Still moving at a snail’s pace, but now that of a snail after a few cups of coffee as opposed to the geriatric snail with narcolepsy we’d been managing before, we limped enthusiastically down the hall. Tommy’s wound was bleeding heavier now, and I could feel us leaving a thin trail of his blood on the ground behind us. His nails were digging into my neck. I felt his foot catch on something, and he gasped audibly.

“Tommy? Do you need to stop?”

He glanced over his shoulder. The screams had all stopped now, and I could definitely hear something big moving from room to room, and coming closer.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, do you? Besides, the pain keeps me from going into shock.”

I pointed with the hand holding the bottle. “I see a door at the end of the hall.”

“I’m bleeding, William, not blind. I see it too. And yes, I think I can make it. But then I’ll definitely have to sit down.”

Behind us, I heard the tentacle yank itself free from the door, so powerfully it hit the opposite wall. I glanced back just in time to see it withdraw from the hall, contracting like a slug. There was a sizeable dent in the plaster directly opposite the door.

We had reached the end of the hall. I grasped the doorknob with a sweaty hand, feeling my heart flutter in my chest. If it was locked, it was all over. Thomas and I looked at each other for a briefest instant, and then I turned the handle. There was a rusty click as the knob turned and the door opened. It was a bedroom.

We stumbled inside, and I slammed the door shut (miraculously, the little iron key was still in the lock, although why it was on the inside I didn’t care to speculate) and locked it. I lowered Thomas down against the wall as gently as I could. He was very pale now and covered in a light sweat.

“I say,” he panted into my ear, “that was some quick thinking back there.”

I kissed him on the cheek.

“This is verging on dangerously illegal, mate.”

“Well, your forehead was too far away.”

He smiled. “A likely story.”

There were no more doors out, but I was still feeling more hopeful about our situation. No, I wasn’t just hopeful, I was floating. Most probably our narrow escape had given me false confidence. I moved lightly around the room, searching drawers and checking under the mattress, protected for the moment by an impenetrable cheerfulness. Nothing was going to happen to us. It was impossible. We couldn’t do anything but survive.

“How much blood have you lost?” I asked Tommy as I looked through a woman’s jewelry cabinet, in case for some insane reason she had left a revolver hidden there.

“Only a pint or so,” he said. “Stick a cork in me, I’ll be fine.”

I peered out the window. It was far too high up to climb down. The moon was beautiful tonight. I returned to Thomas’ side emptyhanded. “It could be worse,” I remarked to him.

He craned his neck up stiffly to look at me. “Yeah? How could things possibly be worse?”

“We could be attending one of my mother’s society dinners.”

Startled, he laughed, then his face silently contorted into a scream and he clutched at the air next to his ribs. “Will, stop making me laugh. It really does hurt.”

“Sorry.”

He took great, heaving gasps, clearly trying to bring his breath under control. Eventually, he managed it. I could still hear the monster moving, searching for us. Something darkened the crack beneath the door, then I heard something stealthily rattle the doorknob. I shuddered. We moved beside the bed, away from the window and the moon.

It seemed that the monster could smell us, or hear us breathing, or perhaps some other, more arcane thing. Little oily black appendages like tiny sea creatures curled curiously out of the keyhole. Something large brushed up against the door, and it shuddered dangerously.

“Well, I think this is finally us,” said Thomas. He held out a bloodstained palm. “It’s been a great run, mate.”

I took his hand. “You too. You never know, we might make another miraculous escape.”

“Two in a row?” Thomas shook his head wryly. “Sorry, I think the Lord only gives us one miraculous escape per sanity-shattering menace. Any more and we might get spoiled, see?” He sighed. “Any of that awful gin left?”

“Sorry. It all got spilled on the floor.”

He put his head back and groaned. “You’re ruining my evening.”

“Really, I don’t know how you two get along without me,” said a sultry voice from the window. “Am I really the only one who thought to find a ladder?”

We both looked around. Harriet was sitting on the windowsill, blood-flecked but otherwise with only a few scratches. She was holding a revolver in her hand, and the handle of another was sticking out of her front. A beltful of sharp implements (including what I swore was a fish knife) was cinched unfashionably around her dress.

I started to my feet. “Harriet? What — the bloody _shit_?”

“I figured my boys would be the source of all this ruckus. Sorry I took so long to find you, I had to run back to the car to resupply.” She gestured with one hand. “C’mon, up with you. The automobile’s wasting petrol.”

“I got two broken ribs, Harriet,” said Thomas from where he was slumped by the bed. “I’m not climbing down anything.”

“Excuses, excuses,” she admonished, climbing over the sill. The creature outside hit the door again, and there was a definite splintering sound. “What an utter bore. Can’t imagine why I married you. Hello, William dear.” She kissed my cheek chastely. “Grab his other side. On three.”

Together we got Thomas up on his feet and to the windowsill.

“Think you can make it?” I asked him.

He peered over the side. “I’m going to have to,” he remarked, and gingerly placed his good leg on the first rung. “Oh, Jesus, that’s painful.”

“I have some highly illegal opiates in the auto’,” Harriet promised from behind him, and her composed face slipped just a notch as she glanced at the door. “Hurry.”

To my amazement, Tommy actually began climbing down. For a while I thought he was going to faint and fall off, but he actually seemed to be managing it. His leg on his injured side hung off the edge of the ladder, while he eased himself down from rung to rung with his good hand. Harriet handed me a pistol and swung herself down after him. I followed, more slowly, closing the window behind me as a last resort. At that moment, something heavy burst the door open, and the room filled completely with lashing tendrils.

I paused — I couldn’t help it — and squinted into the room. I swore there were very faint shapes hidden in the writhing mass, as though each thrashing appendage was limned with the faintest light, creating an ever-shifting… susurrus, that’s what it was, a visual susurrus. I saw letters and symbols, deep in the mass. Despite myself I willed the creature closer, and as I watched, the shapes grew clearer and clearer. It was only when my nose hit the windowpane did I realize that a mass of tentacles were pressed against the glass, and that they were gradually ( _stealthily_ , almost) sliding the window up.

I came to my senses abruptly and completely. Or at least, I must have, because the next thing I was aware of, I was almost halfway down the ladder, moving faster than I would have thought myself capable of. I glanced up and saw a surging inky mass diving toward me from the window, blotting out the stars. It was descending very fast, much faster than I could. Tentacles curled around the top of the ladder, making it shake noticeably. I glanced down. I was still a little too far to jump. Thomas was just getting off the bottom, collapsing in the grass. I turned my face upward again, and one of the smallest, most delicate tendrils brushed up against my cheek. I felt a curious burning sensation, like I had just spilled a fleck of acid on myself, and I saw the tentacle recede, carrying with it a tiny fragment of my flesh. The rest of the mass suddenly accelerated and poured down upon me like tangible smoke, cutting through my clothes like razors, ripping at my hair. I felt one score a deep gash down my arm. Two whip-thin tendrils wrapped around my waist like it was urging me to dance. I felt two rows of tiny suckers lacerate my shirt and clamp on to neatly spaced rings of flesh. For the briefest moment, it felt like there were teeth on their insides.

I let go of the ladder and fell, smashing into Harriet and sending us both hard into the ground. I must have blacked out for a moment, because I didn’t actually remember striking earth. I was falling, tangled up in Harriet, and then I was lying on the ground, staring up at a night sky I was sure was tilted at quite the wrong angle. I thrashed, trying to get my bearings. My head was ringing and in great pain, and I wasn’t sure which direction was up or down, let alone left or right. I realized that some amount of time ago, I had heard a horrible, horrible sound, but I wasn’t sure why anymore or from where. Gradually, the planes of the world all coalesced into the single flat horizon that I knew, and I staggered to my feet. I woozily saw Harriet lying beside me, making very slight sounds and moving sluggishly. I took one look at her arm and promptly vomited up my few sips of gin onto the grass.

Thomas limped over and kicked me feebly in the shin. “Don’t stand there staring at the lady, Will,” he muttered. He had lost so much color now his skin almost looked translucent. “I’d think a gentleman like you would know better. Pick her up and let’s get her to the car.”

I realized now that I could hear the faint growl of an automobile, very close, almost tauntingly close. I looked around and saw it, idling casually, as if to say, _what took you chaps so blasted long? You said you were only going to follow them as far as the front door._

Had this all really only started an hour ago? It seemed impossible. Surely this night had lasted for several days already.

I attempted to bend over, and was met with such searing pain in my chest and belly that I actually could not tell what was injured. Mercifully, Harriet was only about five feet tall and light even for that, so somehow, somehow, I got her in my arms, averting my eyes with almost superstitious care from her injury. Both our guns were gone. One of the knives in her belt had stabbed her in the rear, but not hard, I didn’t think. There wasn’t any blood, anyway. I somehow managed to straighten up and stagger a few steps forward, but I was very dizzy and now felt a little sick, and I wasn’t sure what direction I was going in, like a drunk. Tommy’s hand gripped my elbow and together, leaning on each other, we moved with a laughable amount of pain, hopefully toward the car. It crossed my mind in a flash what a riot it would be if it ran out of petrol just before we got there. It would be quite in line with the rest of our evening.

“What… is… it doing… now,” I spared the breath to gasp.

“It pulled up the ladder and tore it up. I think it was disappointed that it didn’t bleed. I don’t know what it’s doing now, but I think we should keep moving.”

Those few meters to the car was undoubtedly the longest walk of my life, even more so than my unwilling trudge down the aisle with Olivia. I was frequently unsure if I was even still walking, or if between the pain and the dizziness I was just hallucinating it. Suddenly, after what felt like an eternity, my body bumped up against something hard and solid and metal.

I groped half-blindly for the door handle as Tommy left my side. I wobbled dangerously, and Harriet nearly fell from my grasp. I saw the door open and attempted to get inside, rebounding painfully a few times off the edge of the door before I managed it. Somehow, my grasping hand found the inside handle. Somehow, I slammed it shut. I must have blacked out again for a moment, because suddenly the ground was moving beneath me, or was it the car? I didn’t even know anymore. All I cared was, something was carrying us away from the monster. I was so sick of running away from it.

Harriet stirred on the seat next to me and opened her eyes blearily. I couldn’t remember setting her down.

“Wha…” she opined. Her lips were dead white under her lipstick, making the bright red layer on top look false and clashing. “We’re… in car?”

“Yes, dear,” Tommy promised from the front seat, glancing briefly in the rearview mirror.

“Oh.” She seemed to think about this for a long time. “I knew I could trus’ my boys. Well done.”

She appeared to pass out again. I wished I could join her. My nausea was increasing, and the growing pain wasn’t helping. I began to worry that I had damaged my head.

I heard Tommy fumbling with the glove box. He threw something in his mouth and then tossed something small back to me. It was a bottle of unmarked pills.

What the hell, I decided. The worst it could do in my condition was kill me. I took two.

They hit alarmingly fast. My whole body went slack and I slumped against the side of the car. I let my head fall against the glass, smearing blood, mud, and a few blades of grass onto the window. I felt so tired I couldn’t move, even to take another look at Tommy or Harriet and see how they were doing.

My eyes stared unfocused into the distance. I thought I saw a surging mass of coils, far off in the darkness beyond the car. It occurred to me that I had never seen what was on the other end of them. It also occurred to me that was probably the only reason I was still sane. I could hear Tommy laughing hysterically as he drove, and I wasn’t sure if it was cathartic or a sign of encroaching madness. Either way, I hoped he didn’t crash the car.

My eyes were drooping closed almost against my will. The agony in my head had dulled to a quiet roar. I decided to go to sleep too. If anything more was in store for us, I was in no fit state to do anything about it. I prayed I would wake up back far away from here, in our London flat or perhaps a hospital, although what I’d tell the doctors was beyond me for the moment. I prayed that Tommy would not pass out from blood loss before we got there. I prayed that we could fix Harriet’s broken arm. And most of all, I prayed the creature would never find us again.

The world was going dark. I closed my eyes and went to sleep.


End file.
